Juliet and the Bell Jar

Dear Ms Nixie,

My name is Juliet. I live in Verona. I live in a book written by a man. I lived in a type of bell jar, allowed something of a voice with a lid to hold it all in. Do you know a woman never played me. It was a man of course, forbidden as it was for us to be seen on the stage, always hidden, ah but we are only as much as we choose to reveal or as much as we are deemed worthy. I do not wear a bikini but of course I would if my time was now because of the men. I never wanted to be on the top of a balcony, though it was better than being at the bottom. I never would have chosen poison and I never would have chosen to die for a man. I never wanted to stay young in death because old is the youngest moment of wonder one can ever reach. What I mean to say is the older one gets, the purest wonder can be found, like a child rediscovering the world with a fresh perspective and a lot more understanding, despite the ones who want to get in the way of such magic.  I don’t feel particularly witty or pretty or part of a gang. I’ve come to you to say hey. I know how you’ve always been at one with the lost and forgotten, the dead and buried, the ghosts of everything gone to dust or god or the garden or whatever it is we might feel is the way. I’ve come to say;

“Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and asleep and awake – it’s everything except what it is!”

I want you to pass it on, those words from me to all.

All my love

Juliet. N. Montague

Dear Ms Byrnes,

Thank you for contacting me and please send my regards to Mr Spears. I do hope he received my letter and gifts though I never did hear back. Might you ask him for me, just to be certain the whole package wasn’t lost in the Flux Capacitor. I do hope Mr Fox didn’t go and lose all of my handy work or there might even be a price to pay.

Darling, thank you for your heart felt words. I suppose your final quote is much like a riddle dear as is life. Oh dear that ugly mess can be oh so beautiful if only we can get to the heart, to the centre of it, past the fight and fumbling mistakes, the bitterness or the vanity or the fear …then it is what it is, then it is everything, that’s what it is ….LOVE, like the ocean, like the heart of the sea, beating with all of us there in one whole piece. I do believe that place is still possible.

Yours,

Ms Nixie

Dear Ms Nixie,

Mistress what cheer? I do humbly thank thee for the tea cosey and pantaloons made of heavy blue flax. What a frightfully wonderful invention and any man who should shun such genius is in need of a good lot of time in the stocks. I meant to write thee but time got away from me by a mere 417 years. All good with Mr Fox, the goods were delivered. It was my fault, not his. Ms Nixie, keep the woollen wear coming. What a lovely surprise and artistic wonder you bring to the wakeful hours.

Yours,

Mr William. Shakespeare.